Medication misuse in India: a major public health issue in India

Abstract

This is one of the most comprehensive reviews of medication misuse in India. It indicates the widespread nature of the problem and so highlights the need for action. This review provides a detailed understanding as to the complex interplay of factors that result in medication misuse in India.

Health insurance in India: what do we know and why is ethnographic research needed

“…Hospitalization is often presumed to be the most important cause of health related impoverishment in India, but research has revealed that drug expenditure is actually the largest component of OOP payments, accounting for 61% to 88% of the total OOP spending (Garg and Karan 2009;Peters et al 2002;Roy and Hill Howard 2007;Shahrawat and Rao 2012). Contributing to this expenditure is liberal prescription of drugs by practitioners (Nichter 1996;Porter and Grills 2015) and widespread over-the-counter medication use by both the poor and middle class (Basak and Sathyanarayana 2010;Ghosh 2011;Kamat and Nichter 1998). 4 It has been argued that universal health coverage (UHC) implementers should focus explicitly on medicines as one of the most important drivers of quality, safety, equity and cost of care (Wagner, Quick and Ross-Degnan 2014;Bigdeli et al 2015).…”

Antibiotics in Dentistry-Double-Edged Sword

“…Another most common and obvious contributing factor of antibiotic resistant pathogens is self-medication [21]. Self-medication can be defined as obtaining and consuming one (or more) drug(s) without the advice of a physician either for diagnosis, prescription or surveillance of treatment.…”

“…Advertisements on television, radio and print media in addition to advice from family and friends are amongst other most common reason for people to start using medicines without professional help. Likewise, Australian studies have demonstrated a high rate of polypharmacy and self-directed medication use [21]. The frequency of dispensing antibiotics without a prescription was reported to be 22.3% in Saudi Arabia [22].…”

“…Policy-makers need to consider the interplay between systemic, provider, dispenser and consumer factors in order to address the serious concern. An education campaign for health providers, pharmacists and the public around the risks of inappropriate use of antibiotics is warranted [21].…”

Clinical practice guidelines in India: Quality appraisal and the use of evidence in their development

“…The National Health Policy 2017, has for the first time recognized the need to ensure adherence to standard treatment guidelines in both the public and the private sector . The vast private sector, largely unregulated is known to use nonevidence‐based unnecessary interventions including expensive diagnostic tests and surgeries to maximize their profits has a huge interest in the recommendations being made in guidelines . Under the federal set up of the Indian Constitution, health is a “State Subject” wherein the Government of India (GOI) can only enact model guidelines, and it is up to the state governments to accept, adapt, or discard them or develop their own guidelines.…”